Bésame Mucho is a Spanish-language bolero written, with music and lyrics, by Consuelo Velázquez, a Mexican pianist and songwriter. She wrote it in 1932, and it was published in 1940. Los Cadetes del Swing issued the earliest dated recording listed, in 1940, and Emilio Tuero gave an early live performance. The best-known English-language version came from Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra, with vocals by Bob Eberle and Kitty Kallen, recorded for Decca in October 1943 and released that December. Sunny Skylar wrote the English lyrics. The song appears in the films Follow the Boys (1944), Cowboy and the Senorita (1944), where Dale Evans sings it, and Mona Lisa Smile (2003), where Chris Isaak performs it. Other notable recordings include versions by Trío Los Panchos, Dalida (1976), Andrea Bocelli, Diana Krall and Luis Miguel. It is described as one of the most important songs in Latin music and a 20th-century pop and jazz standard, and in 1999 it was named the most recorded and covered Spanish-language song of all time.
